The Ledger
Every statement that passed quotation and attribution checks. Mix any filter with any other: certainty 1/5, debate potential 5/5, or both at once.
why aren't all 18 resolved? a statement only gets an assessment when the public record can support or contradict it. opinions and what-ifs never can, and 0 checkable ones are still open, waiting for their date. predictions held up or didn't; assertions are supported or contradicted. on every card: ▮▮▮▮▮ certainty · ▮▮▮▮▮ debate potential. speakers are clickable
Wilson: Founders should sit with new executives for their first 90 days
“And a way to solve that, that, that I've done at least since it, it's worked, is you block out a conference room or whatever room for the first 90 days, And you guys, you all sit in the same room together. You're gonna know within that first 90 days if this pe…”
Wilson: Pre-interview take-home surveys quickly filter out candidates who miss deadlines
“You would be shocked how many people who you think are amazing can't complete that simple deadline. Like really amazing, seemingly qualified people just don't do that, and that's an instant way, or not instant way, but it's a very quick way of disqualifying so…”
Wilson: An employee's first 90 days predict their next 900 days
“The first 90 days of an employee's journey almost looks, the next 900 days almost exactly the same. Very rarely do you see somebody that comes on in 90 days as remarkably different Than they were in 900 days.”
Wilson: Paying underperforming SaaS salespeople to leave saves compounding revenue loss
“Paying them to leave is actually a lot cheaper than keeping them on. This is especially true for salespeople, because salespeople, especially in the SaaS world, if you have a compounded revenue model, if they are missing their number, you are going to miss an …”
Wilson: SaaS pricing should aim for a 10x ROI ratio
“It is to find out what your ROI is in terms of either time saved or money saved, something like that, and keep it around 10 X. It doesn't need to be much more than that. If it, if it's way more than that, maybe you're actually leaving money on the table.”
Wilson: Hiring sales reps before having a repeatable process never succeeds
“If you don't have a repeatable sales process just yet, and you start hiring more salespeople, it never goes well.”
Wilson: SaaS businesses should be built and scaled like franchises
“When you're building your SaaS business, think of it like a franchise. Franchise is some of the best business models in the world. It's like software. You just copy and paste it, you know, all around the world. And you can do that same exact thing with your SA…”
Wilson: Early B2B startups should master one use case before expanding
“Just do one. Find the one that is so incredibly valuable to the customer and nail that. Then go find 10 to a hundred prospects, ah, that you think have that same, ah, use case fit, if you will, because it's not so much about product market fit, I think at that…”
Wilson: Customers do not care about early logo slides in pitch decks
“Like, when I first started making pitch decks, I would put up the big logo slide from the very beginning, like, look at all our amazing customers. No one cares about that. You know, what they care about is, do you understand the problem that they have? Which i…”
Wilson: Pitch deck presentations should be kept under five minutes
“The second thing about pitch decks is you want to keep this really short. You don't want to moan on and on and on and on, right? Like I'm going to be doing up here for the next, according to 28 minutes. But you want to keep it really short and try and keep tha…”
Wilson: Screen for culture, competence, and compensation fit on first call
“So try and get the culture fit nailed down, then competence fit, then compensation fit and do that in the first call. Don't waste anybody's time, you know, bringing somebody in who you think is really cool, but can't actually do the job because you didn't asse…”
Wilson: Enforcing structured job scorecards leads to better hiring decisions
“If you have somebody in your organization that wants to hire somebody today, you make them go through this process, right? They're going to want to hire ASAP because there's a burning fire somewhere, but make them go through this process of defining who this p…”
Wilson: Managers should establish bilateral agreements rather than one-sided expectations
“Don't set expectations. Set agreements. Get agreements with people. You have an agreement that this is the job that we need you to do, not my expectations, because expectations are usually one-sided.”
Wilson: Startups should compensate advisors with equity options instead of cash
“An advisor that asks for money is probably not an advisor you want on your team, because an advisor is trying to help you grow the business, right? They're trying to expand that share price. And if you pay them cash out of the balance sheet, it's actually decr…”
Wilson: Calculate annual advisor equity by dividing $12,000 by share price
“The way that I've structured it is real simple. What would I pay this person as a consultant? You know, if I were to meet them at a party and say, Hey, I really have this problem. Can you help me to do this? How much would I pay them? Now, of course, this will…”
Wilson: Companies should strictly cancel any meeting scheduled without an agenda
“One simple rule that will save your employees an enormous amount of time is, and you have to live by this, is if somebody calls a meeting and doesn't put an agenda together, no meeting.”
Wilson: CEOs should send an all-company email every Monday at 8 AM
“Every Monday at eight o'clock in the morning, email goes out to you, to all of your employees. Why do this? It's good for you to keep in touch with what's going on in the company, and for the employees to hear your voice. You can control your messaging this wa…”